


caught in the water (all for you)

by ironxprince



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Child Abuse, Harley Keener Needs a Hug, Harley Keener-centric, Hurt Harley Keener, Little Mermaid Elements, M/M, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26083687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironxprince/pseuds/ironxprince
Summary: Harley needs to escape.With his father breathing down his neck and the entirety of the town pressuring him to be someone he's not, Harley needs to get out, to find a place where he's accepted to just live. His Trojan Horse comes in the form of a creature below the surface of the lake he and his father spend their days out on, and Harley thinks he's won-but we all know how it ended for the Trojans.𓆝Or: a Little Mermaid AU
Relationships: Harley Keener/Peter Parker
Comments: 25
Kudos: 64





	1. dream about going out there

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yeeharley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeeharley/gifts).



> Here's the newest project I'm working on! It's something different than what I usually write, so I hope it turns out well :) Enjoy!

Harley trudges down the dirt road, pencil behind his ear and sketchpad tucked under one arm as his other drags a fishing net behind him. The sun hasn’t even come up yet and Dad’s already heading out to the boat, and, of course, he’s taking his only son along with him.

“Hey, John!” Old Tim calls over from his spot on his porch, having a smoke. “Heading out already?” Dad turns and gives him a half-hearted wave and Harley does his best to tuck in behind him, to draw as little attention to himself as possible. His plan is foiled when Dad puts an arm around his shoulders and shoves him forward, pressing against the bruises on his shoulder from last night. It takes everything in Harley to keep from wincing.

“Taking Harley here out. Showing him the ropes. It’s about time he takes over from his old man,” Dad calls cheerily, but Harley hears the threat behind his voice, the frustration. Dad’s been trying to get Harley interested in fishing since Harley was just a kid, but Harley couldn’t for the life of him see the interest in the job. It was too repetitive, too boring, too low-income - growing up eating two meals of beans a day kept Harley from ever wanting to pursue  _ anything  _ like fishing as long as he lived, but with every passing day, his choices grow less and less his own and more those of his father, of his neighbours, of his town. The universe is choosing for him.

“Hey, pay attention, son,” Old Tim calls over to him. “You’re the only thing keeping this whole town from starving, you hear?” Harley gives a meek nod and Dad laughs, clamping a hand on Harley’s shoulder. He clenches his teeth together to keep from crying out as Dad squeezes his fingers and leans in close, his breath hot on Harley’s cheek.

“Be respectful, boy.”

Harley stands up straighter. “Yes, Sir,” he calls, each word seeming to tear away another piece of his soul. Old Tim gives an appreciative nod and Dad turns Harley away, steering him toward the docks with a shove. Harley stumbles forward and the pencil dislodges itself from his ear, clattering to the floor. He stoops to pick it up and Dad sighs heavily.

“Still?” he says as Harley tucks the pencil away, his eyes down. “That phase hasn’t run its course yet?”

“It’s not a phase. I actually like art.”

“Bullshit. You’re a fisherman. You’re  _ only  _ a fisherman,” Dad huffs as they reach the beaten-down dock, and Harley can’t find it in him to argue. He steps over the gaping hole in the wood and avoids the board with the screws coming loose, making his way to the only boat on the shore, a small fishing boat with creaking floorboards that was built by Dad’s Dad’s Dad’s Dad, if Harley is remembering correctly. Honestly, he’s probably not, because he  _ doesn’t care. _

It doesn’t mean anything, though. At least, not according to his father.

Dad pulls the tarp off the boat and shoves it under the wooden seat that creaks as he sits. It’s a miracle the poor boat hasn’t capsized yet. Harley wishes it would just hurry up and rot away already.

“Are you coming?” Dad demands. For a moment Harley doesn’t move, feet planted on the dock as he glares at the boat with something that can only be described as hatred. Dad preemptively lifts a finger. “Don’t get mouthy with me. Sit your ass down and start preparing the net.”

Harley does as he’s told (does he have any other choice?) and begins sorting out the net, but not before placing his sketchpad carefully on the seat beside him. Maybe if he catches a couple of extra trout, Dad will let him clock out early.

Dad begins to row the boat out to the lake, and Harley watches the waves lap against the side, noticing how peaceful they look. Objectively, the water is gorgeous; Harley just wishes any positivity surrounding it hadn't been tainted by abuse and neglect and pressure to be someone he’s not throughout the years. Now, instead of appreciating the water, all he sees is what’s beneath it - the profits, the pressure, the procedure, the pain.

A fishing rod being forced into Harley’s hand pulls him from his thoughts. When he looks up to accept it, the shore is barely a dot in the distance. The lake is large, and Dad always brings them far out to optimize their catch - “We’re feeding the whole town, boy,” he’d say. “It’s an important job, ours. They rely on us. We’d better give ‘em a hearty meal.” True to his word, they’d always bring back enough to buy them a couple days’ worth of dinners in exchange - or, that would be the case, if Dad didn’t take their funds and run to the town pub, spending it all on booze and women and returning home a drunken, staggering mess to give Harley a thorough beating for whatever miniscule thing he’d done wrong that day.

“Grab the bait bucket, boy. Come on,” Dad demands, holding his hand out expectantly. Harley barely spares him a glance as he reaches for the container of worms.

Harley doesn’t like this part; he never has. He’s always been a little bit squeamish, and though the response had literally been beaten out of him, the thoughts never left. He confided in his Dad about it one night as a kid, and John’s response was to have him hold his hands out, palms up. He placed worms in them and made Harley stand in the garden for an hour, keeping him from moving with the threat of a leather belt. That night, Harley cried himself to sleep. Dad yelled at him to shut up.

Harley ties a worm around his hook, and then his father’s, and they cast their lines overboard, out to sea. Dad lets out a hearty sigh as he kicks his feet up on the bench opposite, at ease out on the water. Harley waits for something to rise out of the dark waves and eat him whole.

The sun rises slowly, the sky slowly growing brighter, as Harley and his father add catch after catch onto the growing pile on the deck. Harley knows to prepare the net when Dad groans and stretches his arms above his head; he’s already holding it out when Dad turns to ask for it. Dad takes it wordlessly and throws it overboard. This is normal, his son waiting on him; something expected. This is  _ average. _

Below average is Harley waiting for Dad to ask for what he wants. Those occasions usually end with a slap upside the head.

Harley turns back to the edge of the boat and casts his fishing line out, once more, toward the water. He remains still as Dad alternates between sweeping the net in and using the rod; one is more relaxing, but the alternative provides him with more money to waste and an escape from this small town that Harley refuses to indulge in, no matter how great the itching under his skin grows. It’s hard to say which one Dad appreciates more.

By the time the sun is fully up in the sky and the birds have ceased their musical chirping, Harley has added four large fish to their measly pile; the smaller ones aren’t worth catching, Dad says. They waste space and add unnecessary weight to the boat, so Harley lets them go. He doesn’t know why Dad insists on using the net; he only catches two or three fish per sweep, and sometimes he doesn’t catch any. It’s the tradition, Harley guesses, or the impression that he’s actually doing something helpful and worthwhile. It’s a useless pastime, a false hope.

Harley keeps to his fishing line. It’s simpler, easier, and it allows his mind to drift to what he’ll do if he leaves this town. (Harley’s not going to kid himself; it’s  _ if  _ he leaves. It has not and never will be  _ when.  _ His father has too tight a grip on him for that.) He would head up north, up to New York. He would spend his days in Central Park, painting the sun filtering through the trees and civilians living their dreams and tourists exploring to their heart’s content. He’d sell his paintings along pathways and in the subway and it would provide him with just enough cash to get by, to keep a roof over his head and food on his table. It wouldn’t be much, and he’d often be struggling to get by, but he’d be  _ happy.  _ He’d be doing what he loved, and anything would be a hell of a lot better than this.

Harley feels a tug on the line and reels it in, adding his catch to the pile on autopilot. His pencil shifts behind his ear as he moves, and Harley’s reminded of his sketchpad, laying on the seat beside him. Casting a cautious glance behind him and seeing that his father is otherwise occupied untangling the net, Harley lays the fishing rod at his feet and slides the sketchpad onto his lap. He flips past drawings of a single slice of bread on the table and a beaten-down door hanging onto the hinges for dear life and a single pair of torn-up running shoes before settling on a new page and sliding the pencil from behind his ear. The flattened-down graphite presses to the page as Harley begins to sketch out the smoothness of the waves, the serenity of the atmosphere, trying to capture the sounds and smells of the environment around him simply through visuals. The more strokes he adds, the more he falls into it - his pencil, though not smooth in the slightest, gliding across the page; the scents that smell so much clearer through the imagery than the scene in front of him; the imaginary birds flying overhead that he adds to the drawing and that he can hear calling to him.

His world is shaken and his head sent spinning when the pad is torn from his grasp. Harley’s pencil jams into his thigh and he looks up with a grunt. His father is glaring at him, the page crumpling between his fingers.

“Can you not do something useful with your life for five minutes?” he demands, and Harley keeps all emotion from his expression - anger, hate, frustration… despair. Hopelessness. There’s nothing his father hates more than sensitivity. He equates it to weakness.

“So you’re out doodling this scene,” Dad says, waving the pad in front of him, “when it’s right here in front of you?” Harley doesn’t respond, lips pressed together. “I want an answer, boy.”

“Yes, Sir,” Harley mutters.

“Why?”

Harley meets his father’s eyes, making sure Dad understands him when he says, “Because I enjoy it.”

Dad laughs, and it rocks the boat. The sounds travel across the lake that stretches around them for miles; Harley could swear it adds ripples to the water. “This is a bunch of useless shit,” Dad says as he pulls at the page, tearing it roughly from the book. Harley watches with a pang in his heart as the tear grows. It’s nothing new, nothing that hasn’t happened before, but that doesn’t make the sight any easier. Harley feels like he’s losing a piece of himself. “Who are you helping with this? This is nothing. It doesn’t feed mouths. It doesn’t nourish minds. This is purely selfish, to make _you_ feel happy. Wake up to the real world, boy!” _Rip._ “You’re a Keener.” _Rip._ “Keeners are better than this.”

Dad crumples the page between his fingers, tightening it into a ball, before launching it out for the waves to devour; the movement rocks the boat. Harley watches with mournful eyes as the momentum drags it below the rippling water. Harley waits for it to resurface, but it never comes. Maybe Dad’s forcing it down, down, down, by sheer force of will. Maybe it’s linked with Harley’s emotions, sinking with his dreams, his aspirations. Whatever the reason, Harley mutters an apology to his father and turns away, picking up his fishing rod once more with trembling hands.

Maybe he’ll create a new piece later, if the desire returns. Maybe his inspiration has been tarnished and he won’t feel the urge again, just like Dad wants. Harley shakes his head and clears the thoughts from his mind. It was a poor drawing, anyway.

Somewhere beneath the surface, a creature grabs hold of the page as it sinks down to them. They notice the blotchy lines as they handle the paper with care, unfolding it in a way to minimize damage. In the end, by miracle, it has no tears.

The creature looks at the drawing and smooths out a particularly deep wrinkle with their thumb, taking in every line and stroke and shading and crevice.

The creature smiles, and they claim the artifact for their own.


	2. the world around you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a physically abusive father and minor mentions of a corpse/dead body.

Harley packs their haul into the net and carries it to the marketplace as Dad secures the boat and heads home. Their catch today is on the lower end of average, leaving them with enough money for a good meal and maybe, if combined with the rest of their funds, to pay their electricity bill. That is, until Dad gets ahold of it.

The sun is dipping just below the trees by the time Harley reaches home, a bungalow that could be described as quaint from an outside perspective. All Harley sees is the paint chipping from the doorway after the door had been repeatedly slammed shut, the portions of the roof where the shingles are cracked and let water in during wet season, destroyed bits of a half-finished canvas strewn around the foundation.

Harley clutches the bills tighter in his hand before stepping up to the house and pushing the door open. It never really shuts, so it slides open with a creak, and Harley keeps his shoes on as he steps through the dark foyer. The electricity had gone out three days ago; they have no need for a fridge as all their food is in cans, and Harley does his homework by candlelight. He would really like to turn on a fan, though; September is unusually warm this year, and the smell of fish cramping their small home doesn’t help.

Dad doesn’t seem to mind it as he reclines on the couch in the living room. Harley moves to his side and holds out the bills and Dad accepts them wordlessly, flipping through them.

“Payment dropping a little low, huh?” he huffs.

Harley shrugs. “It was the best I could get.”

Dad forks through the money, pulling out a five dollar bill and handing it out to Harley. When Harley just stares, Dad waves it around. “You going to take it, or not?”

Harley reaches to take it. “What’s it for?”

“Dinner, idiot.”

Harley frowns as the paper crinkles between his fingers. “This isn’t enough.”

“It was the best I could get,” Dad mocks as he moves to pocket the rest of the money, and Harley’s patience runs thin. He grabs Dad’s wrist before he can move, and Dad turns slowly, glaring harshly at him. Harley doesn’t care; he won’t back down.

“What are you doing with the rest of it?”

“That’s my business.”

“Bullshit!”

“Hey!” Dad yells, bolting upright. Harley holds tight to his wrist. “You watch your mouth, boy.”

“We need to pay our bills! Water and electricity- and I’d like to have a meal, for once! We could go out and buy hamburgers, and maybe Old Tim will let us use his barbeque, and-”

Dad pulls his wrist from Harley’s grasp and swings it in one quick motion, backhanding Harley across the face. His head snaps to the side and he stumbles, hands coming up to clench at his sensitive skin. The five-dollar bill tumbles from his fingers in the process and Dad stoops low to pick it up.

“No-” Harley tries to say, stepping forward, but Dad raises his hand.

Harley flinches.

He hates that he does it.

“There are beans in the cupboard,” Dad huffs, standing from the couch.

Harley drops his gaze to the floor. “I finished them this morning,” he says meekly.

“Well then, you already ate today. You don’t need more.”

“But I’m hun-”

Dad lifts a finger, and Harley pinches his lips together. “Maybe you should work harder and earn more money next time,” he says, before turning and storming from the house. Harley watches as Dad trudges up the road in the direction of the bar, and his heart sinks to his stomach. That’s two strikes for today: sketching on the boat, and talking back,  _ and  _ Harley just handed Dad five extra dollars for alcohol.

Tonight’s not going to be an easy one.

There’s nothing Harley can do to evade his fate, so he does what he can to forget it, if only for a moment. He collects his scattered pieces of canvas from outside the house, grabs his one, ratty paintbrush, and heads down to the beach.

Most people are asleep at this time of the evening, or down at the bar, so Harley is unbothered as he takes a seat on the sand and pulls off his shoes and socks, setting them aside. He stretches his feet out into the water, letting the waves lap against his ankles as he takes a moment and stares up at the setting sun. It casts a golden glow over the water and for a minute he just breathes, letting himself fall into the lie that he’s happy, that the lake can be good, that this town is home.

As the light dims, Harley tugs the pieces of canvas onto his lap. He finds a spot in the sand where it’s more dirt than grain and uses that as his paint, drawing the twisted branches of a tree reaching up, up, up, intertwined and simultaneously pulling free, strong near the base and growing thinner as they rise. With each stroke the sky grows darker until the final streaks of orange disappear past the horizon, and Harley’s still creating, wetting his brush before dipping it in the mud to create a lighter effect for the background. He paints until every piece of the canvas is covered, their edges not quite lining up but creating a full picture nonetheless. Harley lays them out on the sand and admires them for a moment, but nothing longer, before picking them up in a single pile, puzzle pieces stacked atop each other.

Harley stands, preparing to walk home, when something out on the water catches his attention, something golden just beneath the surface. A stray bit of sunlight, he thinks, though the sun is long gone.

He shrugs and turns back to the town, beginning the walk up to the house, to reality, to his father’s anger and to pressure he never hopes to succumb to but will have to nonetheless. He deposits the broken canvas in a wire trash can as he passes, not even hesitating to watch the scattered pieces fall.

The sky seems to darken impossibly with every step Harley takes. As he nears the house, he sees candlelight flickering in the window, and Harley forces out a deep exhale. Dad’s home. Harley’s not an idiot; logically, he knows Dad would return home eventually. But now that Dad’s here, in front of him, Harley’s thinking of everything he messed up on during the day, everything he’s soon to be punished for.

Well, it’s not like Harley can avoid it.

When he opens the front door, Dad’s there waiting for him, just a couple of steps inside the doorway. Harley pauses and meets his eyes, waiting for him to make the first move.

“Where’ve you been?” Dad asks, words slurred and voice low.

“At the lake.”

“Oh, so  _ now  _ you appreciate the water? You weren’t so focused on it earlier today.” Harley remains silent. “Y’know how important we are to this town, boy. They need us, and you can’t help them if you’re so busy doodling.”

Harley nods. “Yes, Sir.” Dad’s voice hasn’t yet risen. Maybe, if Harley’s respectful and attentive, he can keep Dad calm. He won’t give Dad a reason to lash out.

“Good. So, it’s settled. You’ll stop drawing and become a fisherman.”

Harley freezes, shoulders stiffening as Dad turns and walks away. When had they come to that conclusion? He knows he shouldn’t say anything. He knows Dad’s just drunk and confused, and any opposition might anger him, but he also knows that to submit is to lie and to lie is to submit, and he won’t agree to anything that would compromise him as a person. He refuses to give in, no matter the circumstance.

“Wait, Dad, I like art.”

“Art won’t pay the bills,” Dad huffs over his shoulder.

“Well, neither does fishing!” Harley shouts back, and Dad stops in his tracks. “It might, if you didn't throw all our money down the drain every night!”

Dad turns slowly and begins to stalk back toward his son, his eyes narrowing. “What did you just say to me?”

Harley looks around for something to help him. He finds nothing; he doesn’t even know what he was looking for. He’s digging himself into a hole he knows he can’t get out of. “I just- I do like art, yes, but I also enjoy fishing with you!" Harley can't tell if that's a lie or not. "But I think we'd be better off if we saved a little bit of money every night, and then maybe… maybe we'd have enough to…."

Dad moves closer until he's towering over Harley, looking him up and down. "Is that what you think?" he says, low, quiet.

“I just….” Harley drops his gaze. “I just want us to have a good life.”

“Is this one not good enough for you?” Dad says, voice rising. Harley looks up quickly to do damage control, but it’s too late. “All I’ve given you, all I’ve done for you- you’re 19, boy! You should have moved out by now, but I’ve allowed you to stay here! I’ve housed you and fed you and given you a job!” Harley flinches with each reminder. “And now, you have the  _ audacity  _ to demand more?”

“Dad, no, that’s not what I-”

Dad lifts his hand, palm up, and Harley flinches, though he knows this isn’t the hand that will deliver the blow.

Harley won’t cry; he refuses to. This has happened too often to evoke such a reaction from him, but still, he has to try.

“Please,” Harley begs, keeping his eyes down. Dad remains stoic, his hand held strong. Harley lifts his hands and finds that they’re trembling as he moves them to his waistband, where his belt lays. He releases the latch with weak, shaking fingers and slides it from the loops, one, two, three, four, five.

The house is silent; even the creaking has ceased as Harley folds the belt and hands it to his father with his eyes down, ends first. Dad turns and walks further into the house. Harley follows him.

𓆝

Harley’s back is sore and cramped as he wakes, laying on his side. It had taken him almost two hours the night before of tossing and turning before finding a comfortable position (or, at least, one that didn’t have him wincing with every breath). He had slid the blankets from his bed and had forgone a shirt, keeping any kind of irritable fabric away from the fresh wounds. They stung when the air hit them, but Harley knew any physical contact would’ve been worse.

He steps gingerly from the bed, gritting his teeth together as his muscles shift, pulling the skin with them. A flannel waits for him on his floor and he stoops low to pick it up; maybe if he ignores the wounds, he’ll forget about them.

When the flannel brushes against his sensitive back and catches on the frayed skin, Harley knows it won’t be that easy.

He pushes forward anyway, because it’s not like this is the worst he’s ever been injured at his father’s hand, and it won’t be the last time. Plus, Harley has to work today if he wants to forgo another beating tonight (his body physically won’t be able to take it) and he knows he’ll be receiving no pity from his father.

Harley decides against breakfast; if he’s only allowed one meal a day, he’d like to wait until he’s actually hungry. Also, he’s scared that he’ll find nothing if he looks in the cabinets, but now, with the cupboard doors closed, he can imagine all that might be in there, boxed and baked goods alike. Harley smiles at the thought as the smell of fresh-baked cookies wafts around him. It arises from a memory, one long forgotten. Harley gets the sense it has something to do with his mother. Of course, he doesn’t know much about her; she left when he was three, and that’s when his father started to go downhill. Harley doesn’t blame Dad for the person he’s become, but he doesn’t forgive him, either.

Dad’s already waiting outside, and Harley hurries out after him. Together they gather their supplies and trudge down to the docks and into the boat. It’s quiet as they row out to the lake and begin with the fishing rods.

Harley watches his hook bob below the surface with every tug and pull of the waves. He releases his muscles and allows his body to move with the rocking of the boat. The wounds on his back become agitated by the flannel, but he fights not to let it show. His father won’t take kindly to weakness.

Beneath the dark surface of the lake, with the stars fading and barely-there above, Harley catches a glimpse of something in the water, something flickering. A reflection, he guesses, but a reflection of  _ what?  _ The sun has not yet risen, their boat houses no electronics or possible reflectors, and the feeble lights of the shore are too far away to have any effect on the water this far out. Harley looks over his shoulder; Dad is still engrossed in the water on his side of the boat. Leaning forward ever slightly, Harley peers over the edge.

At first, he sees nothing, and plans to dismiss the vision as a trick of the light. And then, he sees it again. And again. And again.

Something shining - a  _ bunch  _ of somethings sparkling, a group of them, all with the same distance between; barely any. Harley narrows his eyes as the pattern twists and turns beneath the water, a couple of feet under their boat. It’s the most curious thing, rounded geometrical diamonds twisting and turning like they’re a part of one single cylinder, moving as a group.

Harley catches himself before he can slip off the bench, slamming his hand down on the wood and looking anxiously over his shoulder. Dad is still occupied, still unaware - but when Harley turns back, the shape is gone.

There is something left, something hovering at the surface - a drawing of the lake, graphite on sketch paper, creases spread throughout even as it lays flat with not a single tear around the edges.

Harley’s brow furrows as he leans closer. That’s…  _ his  _ art, from yesterday. Huh. Maybe disturbances in the water drew it back to the boat, and… and flattened it out, somehow.

Harley knows that’s highly unlikely, but what other explanation is there?

Tentatively, Harley reaches down into the water. His fingers brush the surface, and the paper gives way upon contact, leaving the slightest tear. He pulls away slightly, keeping his fingertips held over the boat. This is… odd. How did the page end up back here, and unbroken?

As Harley reaches once more for the page, fingers rise from beneath it and brush against his own.

It takes Harley an uncomfortably long moment to react.

He pulls his hand back sharply, collapsing back into the boat. The fingers retract and Harley’s left staring at the paper, alone again. He’s wondering if he imagined the digits.

“Quit rocking the boat, boy,” Dad says, words long and drawn out and said idly, like Harley isn’t worth his time. Dad hadn’t even turned around.

Harley’s first thought is that they were Dad’s fingers, but that theory has an overwhelming amount of evidence against it. Harley could’ve imagined it, but… he really doesn’t think he did. He  _ felt  _ them. They were cold and pale, but… definitely human fingers.

_ What the hell is under there?  _ Harley thinks as he reaches once more for the page, more curious than anything.  _ Please don’t be a corpse…. _

Harley’s oddly still fingers dip beneath the surface of the lake. He carefully grasps the paper and nudges it aside.

It takes everything in him not to audibly react at the face he sees underneath, staring up at him.

Harley’s eyes blow wide and his lips clamp shut.  _ Don’t make a sound. _ That’s  _ definitely  _ a boy down there, his hair tangled as the gentle waves pull it this way and that, the golden lights shining from where his legs should be, but the water is too dark to tell exactly what’s causing them - and he’s smiling up at Harley.

What. The.  _ Hell. _

The boy’s eyes are a pale blue, irises only visible amongst the whites of his eyes if Harley looks closely, and he’s not entirely sure that the boy is  _ real  _ and not a trick of the water, or… or dead, a cold, pale body floating just beneath the surface.

The boy raises a hand.

The boy waves.

Harley’s dreaming; he must be. He’s hallucinating or something, because he cannot be seeing what he  _ clearly  _ is seeing. Harley just has to blink, and this will all go away, but he can’t find it in him to take his eyes away from the boy’s. He feels… almost enchanted, entrapped by the boy’s cloudy eyes.

The boy lifts his hands above him, pressing toward the surface. Harley can just watch, hypnotized, as the boy presses his palms to the paper with dexterity yet agility and lifts the page from the lake.

Above water, Harley can see that the boy’s hands are trembling, as if being removed from his natural habitat (does he live underwater?) is physically draining him - but soon, Harley’s attention is brought to other issues: not the hands, but what they hold in their possession.

Harley doesn’t want to think about what his father will do if he spots the paper again, and Harley has the odd urge that, if he touches the paper soaked as it is, it will fall to pieces in his hands. (He doesn’t know how it remains in one piece in the boy’s.) Gently, Harley presses his own hands to the boy’s, their shape indented in the soaking paper. He pushes down on the page and gives the strange boy a smile.  _ Keep it,  _ he hopes to say.  _ It’s yours. _

The boy smiles, a bright smile, though his lips remain closed, and Harley feels his heart soar - he’s not even sure why. Harley has a moment longer to think on it before the boy turns and dives deep into the lake, and Harley’s left watching the bubbles left behind by the sudden departure, and a glimmering somewhere deep, deep down, getting smaller by the second.

Harley picks up his fishing rod absentmindedly, and though his body works on autopilot, collecting fish and depositing them on the deck, his mind never leaves the boy.

Who is he?  _ What  _ is he? Why had he come?

Will he return?

Harley thinks to tell his father about it. Dad might know something, having fished as long as he has, but when Harley turns and opens his mouth he sees Dad’s hand held out, ready for the net. Lost in his thoughts, Harley had forgotten to prepare it.

Scrambling, he untangles the knots and sets it in his father’s hands. Dad wordlessly casts the net out to sea, and Harley reaches once more for his fishing pole, but no matter what he does, he can’t keep his mind from the pale, white-eyed boy and his glimmering gold.


	3. wonderful things surround you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm really sorry for the long wait. I'm just getting back into the swing of things, so updates should be coming quicker now! (And the story's getting more exciting....)
> 
> Ann, this is still your story. 💛

Later on that night, after Harley uses the five dollars Dad lent him to buy peanut butter and borrows a couple of slices of bread from Old Tim in exchange for yard work he promises to do tomorrow, Harley settles on the beach with his ankles tucked beneath him. With the sandwich in his left hand and a stick in the right, Harley begins to draw into the sand a face he has yet to see clearly, yet one that is ingrained into his brain.

He draws the boy from the lake.

Sunken cheeks and a sharp jaw, a thin face; long hair that Harley expects may curl when dry, so he sweeps the stick in arching swoops; eyes that are impossibly light, so Harley thins away the sand. In the end, the image isn’t perfect, isn’t anywhere near; Harley keeps getting distracted by the lake.

Is he really seeing a gold glow, or is that simply a trick of his mind? The sun has yet to set, so maybe it’s those final rays, but Harley can’t help but wonder about the shimmering gold that slid with the boy’s movements. They looked almost like…  _ scales.  _ But that’s impossible - scales are on fish, and the boy is… well, a  _ boy- _

Unless he’s not.

_ No,  _ Harley thinks,  _ that’s impossible.  _ Because mermaids don’t exist, right? If they did, the world would have heard about them by now, unless all the fictional stories are indeed true…. No, that’s insane. If mermaids - Harley finds himself laughing at the thought - do, in fact, exist, why would one be in their own little small-town lake? Why hadn’t Harley seen him before now? Why hadn’t  _ anyone  _ seen him before now?

This is crazy, absolutely insane, because mermaids don’t exist, and Harley’s an idiot to ever think they would.

Harley looks down at his half-heartedly-constructed art project, and jumps back. Subconsciously he had added something to the picture, an armless torso leading down and a repeating diamond pattern where the hips should be. It’s only a couple of rows, but enough for Harley to recognize, to understand the message his brain is trying desperately to get through to him.

Harley shakes his head and begins to drag his hand through the sand, to clear the image away. This is insane. He’s going crazy- but….

But it  _ does  _ kind of coincide.

_ Coincide with what?  _ the rational side of his brain yells at him.  _ With the fairy tales you’ve heard? _

Harley makes to agree with the thought, but then he stops, and his hand does the same, leaving one final, untouched diamond in the sand.

_ Yeah,  _ he says back.  _ Why not? _

Why not? People believe in angels and demons, in Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Why can’t he believe in mermaids?

_ Because it’s insane, _ his mind attempts to say, but Harley’s already standing and looking out toward the water.

_ Maybe not. _

𓆝

Harley is pulling back the tarp on Dad’s boat and leaving his father a note in the sand (scratching out his  beautiful haphazard drawing) before he can stop himself, before he can let rational thinking take over.

_ Dad- _

_ Took the boat out. Be back soon. _

  * _your boy_



But with the “your” slightly scratched out, so it mainly reads “boy”.

Okay, maybe the last part is a little bitter, but can you blame him?

Harley is nervous as he steps into the boat for a reason he can’t identify. It’s because he’s going out on the lake at night, or because someone might see him, or because Dad might figure out what he’s doing, right? It can’t be because he’s worried he’ll be proved right or wrong, because that doesn’t make  _ any  _ sense, and it’s  _ definitely  _ not because Harley’s nervous to meet this boy.

Yeah, that’s not it.

Harley begins to row the boat out to the centre of the lake, paddles dipping into the dark water and sending off ripples that make their way to shore, unperturbed by disturbances. Crickets chirp and frogs croak and Harley thinks he hears an owl somewhere as his arms tremble with exertion; he hadn’t guessed how hard this would be. Dad is always the one who rowed the boat.

Harley spots a bat circling overhead, flying in erratic circles and zig-zagged lines, and he thinks that if the bat was just a tad bit faster and the tiniest bit more sporadic, it would match the tempo of his racing heart as he settles in the middle of the lake. It’s dark all around him, the barest light coming from shore, and for the first time since he was a child Harley fears the water. Below him all is black; if something were to rise up now, to capsize his boat, to take him and drag him beneath the current, no one would know, until Dad goes looking for his fishing boat the next morning and no one is there to hand him the net.

Harley straightens his shoulders and inhales deeply, holding it for a moment too long before exhaling in a quick puff. Harley doesn’t want to believe it; he doesn’t think he  _ can,  _ but what if this is real? What if the faint memories of Mom’s drawings on his bedroom wall were replicants of something real, and not something he had always dismissed as a delusion of a woman who never truly loved her family?

No, that’s too much to think about right now.

Though it frightens him, Harley can’t tear his eyes away from the dark water. There’s a slight rustle from the trees on the furthest bank, and ripples form in the waves, and Harley looks beneath them, eyes searching for something….

_ There. _

A quick glimmer in the water has Harley shooting forward, rocking the boat as he clings to the far edge and leans overboard. It could’ve been anything - a coin thrown in, some wreckage that had just caught the reflections of the moon, though no one sails this far out into the lake except for Harley and Dad.

Harley keeps his eyes wide, not daring to blink as he searches the depths of the waves. Another flash on the outskirts of his vision has him turning sharply, the boat bobbing beneath him. Harley’s eyes catch a trail, a ripple of waves carving themselves into the water. A wide path, circling the boat, around and around and Harley’s spinning to follow it, to keep it in his sight. Something is there, just beyond his reach, just beneath the surface, and it’s coming toward him, the trail getting closer, moving straight to his boat-

It stops, an arm’s reach away.

Heart in his throat, Harley slowly inches forward. The world is silent around him. The trees have stopped swaying and the animals have deserted Harley, leaving him alone on the lake with this creature.

Tentatively, Harley leans over the edge of the boat and looks beneath the water.

Two glowing white eyes stare back at him.

A sense of calm washes over Harley at the sight of the boy, despite the image before him - the sunken eyes, the thin face, the waxy skin. When the creature smiles, Harley swears he sees pointed teeth, but he feels no fear.

The boy lifts a hand, skin pale and fingers too long, to the surface of the water.

Something in Harley screams at him not to do it, but that part of him is small, whispering somewhere far off. It’s easy for Harley to shove it down and ignore it as he reaches his hand down to the water.

The boy turns and disappears below the boat before Harley can make contact, a glimmer of gold fading beneath the depths, and Harley leans back in the boat, searching frantically around him for this creature he wants so desperately to see.

(He feels the boy, Harley thinks, can sense his motion beneath the boat. He’s drawn to the boy, wants to get nearer to him, like magnets, like a power compelling him forward. He doesn’t know what it means.

But he likes it.)

He finds the boy floating near the front of the boat, and Harley sits on the nearest bench and just watches, watches as the creature turns in slow circles, as his thin, pale limbs float behind him, giving the impression of a phantom. Watches as a tail, shining with gold, curves at the boy’s hips, as it carves through the water. And then the boy comes to a stop, looking up at Harley with pale blue eyes that are almost white, pupils that are too small.

Harley is drawn to this boy, his heart guiding him forward as his brain tries to tug him back with a warning Harley can’t discern - but his brain seems too small, too insignificant in comparison to what his heart is trying to tell him.

Harley leans forward until he’s just inches above the water, just inches away from the boy, the boat creaking under his weight.

“What are you?” Harley asks, his voice a whisper, though carrying across the water.

The boy smiles, a crooked thing that would unnerve Harley if on a man, but on this boy, it looks like the most beautiful thing in the world. The boy simply gives a flick of his tail, and Harley’s arm is brushed with water droplets. He gives a faint smile.

“What’s your name?” Harley asks, still not entirely sure this isn’t a dream.

It seems so perfect, the world fading away to simply  _ them,  _ and something in Harley’s heart tells him that it’s right.

The boy’s expression goes serious as he meets Harley’s eyes. He opens his mouth without forming sounds, and Harley finds himself swaying, losing his balance. His vision becomes shrouded, zeroed in on the boy’s eyes, his face all Harley can see in the depths of his mind as, vaguely, somewhere far away, he feels his body fall back, his head thudding against the floor of the boat.

_ Peter,  _ comes a whisper in Harley’s mind, before his world fades to black.

He has never felt more peaceful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm excited to hear what you guys think! ♡


	4. what more are you looking for?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took me so long so upload this short chapter. School's really overbearing right now and my motivation's really taken a dive. I hope to get back into the rhythm of this soon.
> 
> TW: drowning, mentions of suicide

There’s a voice reaching out to Harley from somewhere far away, screaming at him, pulling him back. Harley doesn’t want to go to the voice; he likes where he is now, floating, weightless, in some dimension in-between. He doesn’t want to go back.

The voice, however, is relentless, filtering through Harley’s brain, as much as he tries to fight it.

“Boy! You’d better row that boat back right this instant! I’ve got a strip of leather with your name on it! You hear me?”

Harley’s head hurts. He feels like someone reached inside his brain and pieced through it, taking what they’d like and leaving the rest. He feels like… he’s missing something.

The boat rocks and sways beneath him, gently making him aware of his surroundings as he slides his hands beneath himself, wincing with every scrape of the unpolished wood. His hand trembles when he lifts it to rub at his eyes before looking out around him.

He’s… out on the lake. How did he get here? He was looking for something, something that seemed to  _ physically  _ touch his heart, to reach in and grab it and steal it and take it with them….

Harley can’t remember.

“Do you hear me?” the voice screams again, so loud and clear that Harley winces. “You get back here!”

Harley doesn’t know where he is, or why he’s here, or who’s screaming at him, but he knows he doesn’t want to go to the shore, to that main.

Something’s keeping him on this lake.

And he doesn’t want to fight it.

Groggily, Harley lifts his hands to the edge of the boat, hauling himself up and peering over the edge. The water, so dark and deep and glistening with the beginnings of the morning sun, call to him, looking enticing and pulling him over. Slowly, Harley starts to tip his weight over the edge of the boat.

“You- what the hell do you think you’re doing?” the voice shouts. Harley ignores it. He doesn’t have any connection to that voice. He does, however, need to see what’s under the surface.

He leans further.

“You get back in the boat this instant! You row it back to shore, you hear me?”

Harley’s fingers brush against the water. His wrists are engulfed, then his elbows. He begins to roll forward.

“Harley Mason Keener!”

Harley blinks.  _ He knows that name. _

Before he can think too much about it, he’s tumbling forward into the waves.

The water hits him all at once, a chill that touches him right to the bone, that settles into his brain and freezes it over, ensuring he’s thinking about only one thing.

_ Gold. _

Something golden. Flashes of sunlight on the waves, of something sparkling beneath.

It’s dark.

A smiling face, pointed teeth and pale eyes in depressions of tightly-pulled pale skin.

Dark as he sinks down, down, down.

Something scary - no, something  _ good. _

Warmth flares in his heart, unnatural and superficial and whole as icy fingers tug him down, ghosts of a hand pressing down on his chest, pulling him down, down, down.

Harley blinks slowly up to the surface of the lake. The sky above is brightening, a faint orange tickling the tops of the distorted trees. Harley smiles slow, his lips turning upward as he’s pulled down, the water tightening its hold on him.

He’s going home.

He lets the hands drag him down.

There’s a disturbance in the water, a splash followed by the current. Something approaching them.

The hands leave Harley and he’s weightless, limbs weak as he floats, seeming to hover. Torn between worlds.  _ Abandoned. _

Harley feels cold, and isolated, shaking and quivering and alone, and his chest feels tight as he’s overcome with the sudden desire to breathe. Why is he down here? There was someone-

Harley flips, struggling to spot the hands he felt touch him, trying simultaneously to swim upward. His arms move in frantic circles and he’s lost, trying to find which way is  _ up.  _ Panic settles into Harley’s veins and he struggles, thrashing. He doesn’t want to be down here- he wants to drown. He wants to live. He wants to return home.

Harley’s at a crossroads.

A hand roughly grabs Harley by the wrist and yanks him up, and Harley barely kicks as he’s tugged through the waves, pulled toward the surface. The water around him lightens and Harley realizes that he  _ doesn’t  _ want to go down there. He doesn’t want- he doesn’t want to….

_ Then why is he yearning to return to a place he’s never been? _

Harley breaks the surface and swims over to the boat, clutching desperately to the sides as he coughs and wheezes, heaving in heavy breaths. Dad tugs himself up and over the side, drenching wet and his face red. His movements rock Harley’s sense of stability and he almost lets go.

“What the hell were you thinking?!” Dad demands, loud and angrily. Harley flinches back, his mind weak and senses overcome as his limbs tremble with the cold. A pressure builds up in his chest, in his throat, one he hasn’t felt in years.

He’s crying.

He’s mourning what he almost lost, or what he almost had. He wants to return but doesn’t want to leave. He doesn’t want to be  _ here, _ wherever he is.

He almost had it all.

Dad pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing. Harley clings to the side of the boat, his forehead against the wood as he sobs. A hand enters his vision, and beyond it is Dad watching him, sorrow in his expression. Slowly, Harley places his hand in his father’s. Dad helps him up into the boat.

Harley sits, shivering, on the bench as Dad rests across from him, his head in his hands. Harley refuses to move, sensing something off, something different.

Dad’s shoulders shake. He begins to sob.

“Not you, too,” Dad whispers. “I can’t lose you, too.”

Harley watches, in a state of shock, not sure what to say. Finally his father sighs, lifting his eyes to the heavens. “What do you remember about your mother?”

“Um… she was an artist,” Harley says faintly, torn between reminiscing on the few memories he has of his mother and engaging in the harsh reality of now. “She drew on my bedroom walls, and… she made cookies when I was sick, which probably wasn’t the smartest, but-”

“And her death?” Dad interrupts.

Harley eyes him nervously. “I woke up one morning, and… she was gone.”

Dad shakes his read, rubbing his chin as he looks out to the water. “She drowned,” Dad says simply, and with those two words Harley feels the breath get knocked out of him. “She loved the water so much that one day, she just….”

Harley can’t breathe. His chest constricts and his head spins, his shivering growing more intense. His mother  _ drowned  _ in the very lake he spends his days? All these years thinking she walked out on her child, her little baby boy… but there’s one more thing Harley needs to know.

“And did-” His voice comes out strangled, and he needs to clear his throat. Dad finds his eyes, his walls torn down and the expression he wears is not like anything Harley’s ever seen before. “Did she….”  _ Did she do it herself? _

_ Did she choose to leave me? _

Dad drops his gaze, and that’s all Harley needs to know.

Harley leans forward, dropping his head into his hands with a slow exhale. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispers, his throat aching and his voice barely-there. Dad sniffles, looking out onto the lake.

“I wanted to protect yo-”

“Bullshit,” Harley interrupts, spine stiffening. Dad looks up at him, the fight that Harley had grown accustomed to seeing for 16 years gone from his features. It unnerves Harley, and drives him forward all the same.

“You never cared about me.”

Dad has the audacity to look crestfallen, his gaze dropping to the floor of the boat. “Harls, you know that’s not true-”

“Oh, so you know my name, now?” Harley interrupts, pushing his shoulders back and leaning over his father. He’s angry, sure, but he has been for years. This, what he feels right now, is something different. Learning that his mother… knowing she had… in the water beneath his feet-

“Why did you hide this from me?” Harley demands. “Why wouldn’t you-” The pain in Harley’s throat becomes unbearable and he’s forced to stop, turning toward the waves as his lips taste salt. He watches the water move as if it has a life of its own, waiting to grow, to spread, to devour. He focuses on the far shore as he speaks. “Did you find her?” he asks quietly, unable to make out the trees through a sheen that had grown across his vision.

It takes Dad a moment to answer. “No,” he says. “We got a-a crew out here. Nothing.”

Harley tries to picture that, tries to picture John Keener loving someone, loving his family, loving his wife so much he spends his limited money just to hold her body one last time. The face in Harley’s mind does not match that the man before him wears.

Harley wonders if Dad would search for his body.

Dad sighs. “Come on,” he says gruffly, and the boat sways as Dad shifts his weight. “Let’s go grab the nets.”

Harley doesn’t move from his spot, letting Dad row them back to shore. Old Tim gives them an odd look as they approach, just as the sun peaks up over the trees; Harley pays him no attention. His eyes focus on the waves, on the space beneath. He imagines a face staring back, sees it looking up at him.

Harley doesn’t know if he sees his mother, or the golden boy.

He doesn’t know if it’s even there at all.


End file.
